Saudi Weapons Deal Opponents to Present Chrystia Freeland With Ready-to-Sign Cancellation Letter

Large 4 X 4 Faces of War Will be Featured at Nonviolent Demonstration
Former Canadian Disarmament Ambassador Peggy Mason to Speak

Tuesday, January 15, 11:30 am (Martin Luther King's birthday)
Global Affairs Canada, 125 Sussex Drive, Ottawa

To celebrate the January 15 birthday of civil rights leader and pacifist Martin Luther King, members of Homes not Bombs and Ottawa's Raging Grannies will attempt to present Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland with a ready-to-sign letter cancelling the $15 billion Saudi weapons deal. They will also carry large portraits of the victims of war to remind Freeland of the human face of her failure to cancel the contract.

"Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland keep fretting about how to get out of a deal that contributes to the detention and torture of women's rights activists, that worsens a war against the Yemeni people that has placed 20 million lives at risk of starvation, and which violates Canada's own export control guidelines," explains organizer Matthew Behrens. "So we have a ready-to-sign letter for them that cancels the deal, ensures investments for affected workers in alternative, socially useful green technology, and bars Global Affairs and the Canadian Commercial Corporation from continuing to jet-set around the world as a global arms broker."

While the Liberal government ultimately signed off on a Saudi deal initiated by the Harper Conservatives, members of Homes not Bombs point out that the issue is structural, not partisan. "We have numerous agencies of the federal government investing in weapons that the government then tries to sell to some of the worst human right violators on the globe," Behrens says, noting that Canadian weapons sales to the U.S. and Middle East (along with previously approved sales to ruthless leaders like Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines and armoured vehicles to Colombia) continue to make a mockery of any "peaceable kingdom" press releases issued by the Trudeau government.

While the Liberals have said they worry about financial penalties and the economic effects on the southern Ontario manufacturing economy, Behrens notes that Ottawa maintains a $102 billion fiscal emergency fund which could be drawn upon to ensure no one gets hurt further by a deal that has already proved hugely damaging. "They can use money from the emergency fiscal fund to deal with a human rights emergency."

"It's appropriate we do this on Martin Luther King Day because the late civil rights leader was very clear when he discussed overcoming the triplets of militarism, racism and poverty. King would have been the first to condemn this deal, the sleazy way the Liberals have attempted to justify it, and their complete and utter moral and legal failure to actually end this deal and all other weapons exports that do nothing but fuel the fires of global conflict."

Former Canadian Disarmament Ambassador to the United Nations Peggy Mason, a long-time critic of the Saudi weapons deal, will be on hand to reiterate her call for cancellation of the deal, as well as ending Canadian weapons exports to countries that are human rights abusers, or which undermine regional or international security.

For more information: Homes not Bombs, (613) 267-3998

Homes not Bombs
PO Box 2121, 57 Foster Street
Perth, ON K7H 1R0
(613) 267-3998